Drawn from the Gallery’s collection, Everything Under the Sun pays tribute to the late art collector Andrew Gruft (1937–2021), whose generosity and support over the past two decades have been crucial to the development of the Gallery’s collection of photographs. It features a selection of photographs donated to the Vancouver Art Gallery by Gruft and his partner, Claudia Beck.

Andrew Gruft played a vital role as collector, critic, patron and life force in Vancouver’s art community for almost five decades. NOVA, a gallery that he and Beck ran from 1976 to 1982, was an important nexus for the city’s artists, curators and collectors. NOVA mounted exhibitions of work by well-known photographers, including William Henry Fox Talbot and Robert Frank, as well as exhibitions by then unknown Vancouver artists such as Jeff Wall and Marian Penner Bancroft. After NOVA closed, Gruft and Beck continued to build an extensive and eclectic collection of photographs and to actively support Vancouver artists.